Republican Face-Off

Who will win the Republican nomination? The answer may already be written in the candidates’ faces. Mac Fulfer, author of Amazing Face Reading and one of the nation’s foremost experts on the subject, says a single picture is about 70 percent accurate. We show his take on Mitt Romney’s mug in January’s The Presidential Look, now see how he handicaps a few of the others in the field.

NEWT GINGRICH
There are few things presidential candidate can inspire that are better than trust, and according to Fulfer, Gingrich has trust written in all over his face.

1. Cheeks The large space between the corner of his eye and the bottom of his nose are what Fulfer calls “healer cheeks.” “He surrounds himself with this aura of nurturing and healing,” Fulfer says. “The main thing about it is it causes people to trust him.”

2. Nose Gingrich’s narrow nose shows his capacity for hard work, but a hanging eyelid on his right side (the professional side) means he’s over extending himself, Fulfer says. “Even though he’s the Energizer bunny that can just keep going and going, he’s taking this gift that he should have used only in emergencies and made it a default.”

3. Ears Gingrich’s ear cups show how he interprets reality, Fulfer says. The gap missing in the outer helix shows Gingrich can struggle with boredom, and the lack of an anti helix means he can tend to substitute subjective reality for universal reality. “He thinks the way he sees things is just the way they are,” Fulfer says.

4. Earlobes The crease on his ear lobe is a heart line. “The way he measures success in life is by setting goals and accomplishing them,” Fulfer says, “but every time he accomplishes the goal he just bumps the bar up.” The downside: By constantly raising the bar, he places himself under a lot of pressure, and this could eventually lead to heart problems.

RICK PERRY
The current governor of Texas comes across as a cocksure, straight-shooting, tell-it-like-it-is kind of candidate — sometimes to a fault.

1. Forehead The vertical line on his forehead — Fulfer calls it a freight train line — lays claim to some of that forthrightness. “He’s got himself so focused that when he’s on it, he’s totally on it,” he says. “He’s not just a laser beam, he’s a laser beam on the front of a freight train.” When he’s talking to potential voters (rather than debating, where he’s performed worse than other candidates) Perry has the gift of gab. “He could talk the paint off the wall if he wants to,” Fulfer says.

2. Eye Creases The diagonal stripes emanating downward from Perry’s eyes are what Fulfer calls “courage lines.” That means that Perry has forged his character by overcoming adversity. That pairs with the grooves on the side of Perry’s nose flanges, which show that he was cutoff either emotionally or financially at an earlier point in life. “He just decided if I want anything, I’ll just get it myself,” Fulfer says.

3. Irises Behind the strong facade, however, Fulfer can see a sensitive side in Perry’s small irises. “He’s sensitive,” Fulfer says. “He always has been ever since he was a kid, and he’s allergic to anyone raising his voice and yelling at him.”

MICHELE BACHMANN
Fulfer’s reading of Michele Bachmann sketches out a self-made woman who won’t stop driving, even to the detriment of other parts of her life.

1. Eyes She’s pushing herself too hard, Fulfer says of Bachmann. He notes the eye puffs on both sides, with the one on her right more exaggerated. “The puff on her right tells me that in her external world, she’s just driving herself to the bone.” In the left eye puff Fulfer reads that “Her intimacy needs aren’t being met.” We won’t go into whether that could contribute to the notorious Crazy Eyes…

2. Eyebrows Bachmann’s high eyebrows indicate selectivity rather than groupthink, Fulfer says. (Plucked, tweezed, shaped, or penciled-in eyebrows represent the person’s ideal, Fulfer explains, so eyebrows are always good indicators of personality.) Roundness in Bachmann’s ‘brows reveals that she’s people oriented. “If I was trying to sell her something I would tell her, ‘Oh, I’ve got one of these, it’s great,'” Fulfer says.

3. Nose In Bachmann’s case, her nose with a ball on the end marks her for creativity. “Her nostrils tell me she’s a self-made person,” Fulfer says. “She’s improved her lot in life. She’s pulled herself up from where she started.” Bachmann’s left nostril is smaller than her right nostril, which Fulfer interprets to mean she’s moved to a greater sense of abundance as she’s gotten older.”

4. Chin The lines that generally run vertically from the mouth toward the chin are what Fulfer calls secret lines. “She’s got major, major secret lines,” he says. “There’s things that she will not talk about. You could pull her fingernails out and she wouldn’t reveal it.”

All photos by Gage Skidmore/Flickr